Shimakaze (Kantai Collection)

I'm Destroyer Shimakaze. I won't lose to anyone in speed. Swiftly like the island breeze.

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~ Shimakaze

Shimakaze (島風) (Island Wind) was a one-off super-destroyer built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. She was armed with six 127 mm (5.0 in) dual purpose guns and conventional anti-aircraft and anti-submarine weaponry. More importantly, she was the only Japanese destroyer to be armed with 15 torpedo tubes each capable of firing the deadly 610 mm (24 in) Type 93 "Long Lance" torpedo. The ship was a testbed for an enormously-powerful, high-temperature, high-pressure steam engine that was able to develop nearly 80,000 shp (60,000 kW). This made her one of the fastest destroyers in the world: her designed speed was 39 kn (72 km/h; 45 mph), but on trials she made 40.9 kn (75.7 km/h; 47.1 mph).

Contents

Appearance

Shimakaze has long blonde hair and a flat chest. She is typically seen wearing an outfit with a sailor collar & striped thighhighs. She is often accompanied by Rensouhou-chan, familiar-like turrets which originated from Shimakaze's three twin 12.7 cm/50 naval gun turrets.

Personality

She often boasts about her speed and scolds the fleet and admiral for being too slow. She also often tends to her Rensouhou-chans. Artists tend to give her a loner personality due to her being the only ship of her class. With the introduction of Amatsukaze, a Kagerou-class destroyer which was used as the testbed for Shimakaze's turbine, the latter has come to be seen as Shimakaze's older sister.

She also appears in the anime, but instead of being the problem child that she's been shown as in her own manga, she's portrayed instead as a hyperactive and excitable if absent-minded girl. Despite this, she's shown to be one of the most skilled Destroyers on the base, easily outfighting a squad of enemy destroyers while Fubuki had enough trouble with a single one.

Trivia

Her name means "island wind."

Highest fuel and ammo consumption among Destroyers, consuming 20 fuel and 25 ammo at full refuel.

She was a unique ship with no sister ships. In media, she is often shown as depressed by this.

However, Amatsukaze used prototype steam boilers and turbines which were later used in Shimakaze's construction.

Sunk in the Battle of Ormoc Bay near Cebu, Philippines, 11 November 1944.

She was not actually the world's fastest destroyer at the time; that honor goes to the French destroyer Terrible. Terrible had a top speed of 45 knots as opposed to Shimakaze's 40.9 knots. However if one considers offshore speed, Shimakaze would be the fastest destroyer at that time.

Fans have given her the nickname "Zekamashi", her name "spelled" backwards as it would be on an old Japanese life preserver. This is because traditionally, Japanese was written in vertical columns from right to left. If you tried to write on something thin like a life preserver, there would only be space for one character per line, so you would end up writing backwards by modern, left-to-right standards.